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Also, the official death toll for U.S. troops now passed 3,000.
“The president believes that every life is precious and grieves for each one that is lost. He will ensure their sacrifice was not made in vain.”
And Dubya’s gunna give his speech on how many more kids they’re going to send off to die...enh, one of these days. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day before the State of the Union. One never knows.
Two bits of writing I did like, about the cry for “more” as a Rumsfeldian attempt to re-fight Vietnam, and the kind of mental gymnastics required to believe the occupation is “going well.”
I’d tried to take a break from all the mental overload this past month. Didn’t quite succeed, I guess. And so we go on. And on:
The choice for Ross was simple, but simple does not mean easy. His straightforward answer to a simple but difficult choice should stand as a shining example for the rest of us. We all face simple choices, but how often do we choose to make a sacrifice to get the right answer? The right choice sometimes requires honor.
Our Bible tells us that God gave up his only son to die for us so that we may live. But Romayne and I are not gods. We can’t see the future, and we didn’t give our son to die, knowing that he will live again. We gave him to fight and win and come home to us and marry and grow old and have children and grandchildren. But die he did, and his mother, dad and sisters must face that fact and go on without him, believing that someday we will meet again. Heaven is beyond our imagination and so we must wait to see what it’s like.
jesus
even grimmer than the fatalities is the total u.s. casualty number — 25,000, including the 22,000 wounded. that’s a huge toll. the tendency to focus on deaths alone understates the real scale of the carnage. (and of course iraqi dead and wounded is a much bigger number.)
best war ever
But where’s the reason for this whole war? Where is...
?
the tendency to focus on deaths alone understates the real scale of the carnage.
Especially given that many of those people alive would have been dead if they had suffered similar wounds in Vietnam. Medical technology has advanced to the point where many can now survive them, but it’s pretty grim. Hearing the Usual Suspects say “Well jeez, it’s nothing compared to the amount of people dead in Vietnam, Rumsfeld was the greatest!” etc. ignore that salient point time and again — thanks to the timing of history, it could and most likely would have been so *much* worse, and that’s cold comfort.
In light of that, this seems even more appropriate:
Chuck Hagel now calling bullshit(and also mentioned earlier over the break that he’s probably ducking out of politics after his term ends), Joe Lieb and Warner running defense.
The story to which Ned linked upthread has this criticism, repreated with greater intensity as the war has killed more people:
“The fatal flaw was when right after September 11 the president asked everyone to go on with their lives. That set the stage for no one sacrificing,” said a Special Forces team sergeant who recently served in Iraq. “That’s why they aren’t behind it, because they don’t have a stake in this war. They aren’t losing or gaining anything. If you don’t see it, smell it, feel it, how are you connected?”
The president also urged Americans to go shopping sometime before Xmas.
oh yeah, and about that speech
...The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush’s Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.
Its central theme will be sacrifice.
The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.
The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces...
So let’s brainstorm what possibilities he could take to prove how serious he is about this “sacrifice.” Send the Twins over to USO tours?
such a vile combination of stupidity and ego
SYNTH SOLO